Head-to-head · documents read November 4, 2026 or later
HeyGen vs Synthesia: which fine print is kinder to you?
Short answer
HeyGen is friendlier on credits (one extra month of rollover on monthly plans) and leaves paid users free to use the output commercially. Synthesia is far stricter on data, with a published commitment not to pre-train on customer inputs or outputs, but every purchase is non-refundable and its stock avatars are licensed only while you subscribe. Your choice depends on whether your footage or your budget is more sensitive.
| HeyGen | Synthesia | |
|---|---|---|
| Zone score | 5.8/10 | 5.8/10 |
| Paid from | $24/month billed yearly (Creator; $29 month to month) | $14/month billed yearly (Starter; $19 month to month) |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| What users say | A Users rate HeyGen well everywhere we looked: 4.2 on Trustpilot from 5,150 reviews, 4.8 on G2, 4.7 on Capterra and 4.8 on the iPhone app from about 31K ratings. The most repeated praise is how easy it is to turn a script into a video with natural-looking avatars and voices. The most repeated complaint is credits: they run out quickly, it is hard to tell what each generation costs, and a few users were charged after canceling. | B Business users rate Synthesia well (G2 4.6, Capterra 4.6), while Trustpilot is more mixed at 3.8 from 1,830 reviews. The most repeated complaint is content moderation: legitimate videos get flagged or held for manual review with little explanation, alongside monthly credits that expire and a price many small teams find high. The most repeated praise is an easy editor with realistic avatars, plus useful training and helpful support. |
| Pricing clarity | B Plans are listed in dollars with a yearly toggle advertised as '2 months free'. The pricing page does not name the billing currency. Two cost traps: Business seats cost $20 a month each but add no credits, since they share one pool, and the Pro plan is really a ladder of credit tiers from $49 (1,000 credits) to $4,300 (100,000 credits) a month. | B Self-serve plans are listed in dollars with monthly and yearly prices and credit volumes. Watch the introductory prices: Starter shows $9 and Pro $49 for the first month on monthly billing before reverting to $19 and $89. Each paid plan includes a single editor, with guests on top, so a team of creators quickly lands on Enterprise pricing. The page does not state currency or tax treatment. |
| Cancel & refunds | D The Terms say payments are non-refundable except where required by law. The help centre allows that HeyGen and Google Play purchases 'may be refunded within 15 days' (14 days for Apple), but reviews requests case by case, may refuse if a significant amount of credits has been used, and typically will not reimburse months of a forgotten subscription. Cancelling stops the next renewal; you keep access to the end of the cycle. | D The billing help article says all purchases are non-cancelable and, unless your contract says otherwise, non-refundable, including renewals you did not use. Studio Avatars cannot be refunded once delivered. You can cancel from Billing in account settings, but must do so before the renewal date, and Synthesia warns a reminder email is not guaranteed on every plan. |
| Limits & credits | C On monthly billing, unused credits carry over one extra cycle; on annual billing they accumulate until the renewal date, and the oldest credits are spent first. Moving to Free forfeits them. Creator and Pro users cannot buy one-off credit packs and must upgrade; only Business can buy extras at $0.05 a credit. The help centre does not publish per-feature credit rates and says costs are shown in the product before you generate. | C The pricing FAQ says monthly allowances and credits reset each billing period, with no rollover; annual plans get the year's credits up front. Credits bought separately stay valid 12 months. Credits burn at different rates: a one-minute Syren video typically uses 1,000 to 2,000 credits and lip-sync doubles the cost, so a 1,250-credit Starter month may cover only about a minute of that model. |
| Your data | D For paid plans, the Terms grant HeyGen a royalty-free, transferable, sublicensable, worldwide and irrevocable license to your content, including to train or improve its AI and machine-learning models. The privacy policy lists text, voice, scripts, images and videos as inputs used to train its models, on a legitimate-interest basis. There is no settings toggle: you opt out by contacting HeyGen's privacy team. Deletion requests are handled within 72 hours, with backups kept 60 days. | B Synthesia's AI governance page states that it does not use Customer Data, including inputs or outputs, to pre-train its AI components, and fine-tuning on customer data happens only on the customer's written instruction. The Customer Terms still let it analyze usage information to improve the services. Biometric data for an avatar is kept as long as the avatar exists on the platform. |
| Output rights | B On paid plans you own your input and output, HeyGen assigns any rights it acquires in the output to you, and commercial use is allowed. Free plan output is only licensed to you, revocably, for personal, non-commercial and internal evaluation purposes, so no ads, client work or monetized posts. You also need permission from anyone whose face or voice you upload. | C You own your output, excluding Synthesia's own components. Stock avatars, voices and templates are only licensed during your subscription; after it ends you may keep using videos already generated but nothing new. The Acceptable Use Policy requires Synthesia's written consent before using a stock avatar in promoted or paid social ads, news, fundraising or political content. |
Pick HeyGen if…
you publish marketing videos often, want unused credits to carry over, and can email HeyGen's privacy team to opt out of training.
Pick Synthesia if…
you make internal training videos with company or client material and need customer data kept out of model pre-training.
Plans side by side
| HeyGen | |
|---|---|
| Free free | $0 |
| Creator monthly or yearly | $29/month ($24/month billed yearly) |
| Pro monthly or yearly | From $49/month |
| Business monthly or yearly | $149/month plus $20 per extra seat |
| Enterprise contract | Custom |
| Synthesia | |
|---|---|
| Basic free | $0 |
| Starter monthly or yearly | $19/month ($14/month billed yearly, $168/year) |
| Pro monthly or yearly | $89/month ($59/month billed yearly, $708/year) |
| Enterprise contract | Custom |
Every grade links back to its source in each full review. How we grade · Affiliate disclosure.